Court Victory for an Adult Home In Its Treatment of the Mentally Ill

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY

Published: June 24, 2003

A state judge has dismissed the main part of a lawsuit filed by the New York attorney general that had sought $12 million from the former operators of a Brooklyn adult home to compensate hundreds of mentally ill residents who had long endured filthy conditions and little if any supervision.

The judge, Justice Ira B. Harkavy of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, essentially ruled that the lawsuit could not be brought because it contained charges that had already been made by the state against the home, Seaport Manor, in two earlier disciplinary proceedings that had been formally settled. Justice Harkavy did not rule on the lawsuit's merits. He acknowledged in his decision that Seaport, which is now closed, ''was plagued with a series of widespread operating failures and deficiencies that threatened the health, safety and welfare of the residents.''

Christine Pritchard, a spokeswoman for the attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, said his office was disappointed by the ruling and was considering an appeal. She would not comment further.

Jeffrey Sherrin, one of the lawyers for Seaport's former operators, praised the decision, adding that even if the case had not been dismissed on technical grounds, the attorney general's office would never have been able to prove the allegations against the home.

The dismissal of the lawsuit was a new blow to efforts by some state officials and advocacy groups to toughen oversight of the adult homes, which shelter 15,000 mentally ill residents in New York. Last week, Gov. George E. Pataki and the Legislature failed for a second year to agree on measures to improve how the system is regulated.

In the lawsuit against Seaport, filed in December, the attorney general's office contended that the former operators repeatedly engaged in ''illegal, fraudulent and deceptive'' conduct that endangered the psychiatric patients entrusted by the state to the home, which had 346 beds and is in the Canarsie section.

The lawsuit charged that the home neglected residents who were in crisis, distributed psychotropic medication haphazardly or not at all, allowed rooms to become infested with vermin and misappropriated money. The former operators improperly siphoned off hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from Seaport, and paid its administrator, Esther Elizabeth Rosenberg, up to $180,000 a year in salary, and $250,000 in total retirement benefits, the lawsuit said.

The $12 million in damages sought by the attorney general was roughly the amount that the residents paid the home between December 1998 and June 2002, money drawn mostly from their disability checks.

Mr. Spitzer had said when the lawsuit was filed that it heralded a new era of state enforcement of rules governing the adult home system, which for more than 30 years has been a little-scrutinized segment of the mental-health network.

Mr. Spitzer's office began investigating Seaport after the home was the focus of an article in The New York Times in April 2002 that appeared as part of a series detailing widespread failings in the adult homes for the mentally ill. The article described how Seaport residents often died under questionable circumstances and how the state almost never investigated their deaths.

After having done little over the years to punish Seaport's operators, the Pataki administration responded to the investigation by The Times by beginning disciplinary proceedings. In an agreement with the State Department of Health, the operators then settled the charges by surrendering their license. Citing that disciplinary proceeding and an earlier one brought by the Department of Health, Justice Harkavy said in his decision, dated June 11, that the lawsuit violated established legal doctrine because the state was basically reopening matters that had already been settled.

''All the charges in this case were the exact same charges that had been made against Seaport Manor in the two prior enforcement proceedings,'' said Mr. Sherrin, one of the lawyers for Seaport's former operators: Baruch Mappa, Emil Klein and Martin Rosenberg. He also represents Ms. Rosenberg, who is Martin Rosenberg's daughter.

The judge's decision suggested that under current law, the state had few if any options for seeking restitution for residents from operators who run failing adult homes. Lawyers noted that during the disciplinary proceedings brought by the State Department of Health, which regulates adult homes, restitution was typically not among the possible penalties.

But according to the decision, if the attorney general's office then follows up with its own lawsuit, seeking restitution, the lawsuit would face what amounts to the civil equivalent of a double-jeopardy ruling.

Justice Harkavy did allow a small part of the case to move forward, ruling that the attorney general could continue to seek payment of fines that had been assessed earlier against Seaport's former operators.

Photo: The Seaport Manor group home, shown here in 2002, has since been closed. (Richard Perry/The New York Times)